Review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) by Nick O — 27 Feb 2013

Stephen King once said something along the lines of you'll never be able to exactly transcribe onto paper what you envision in your head. That's the weird and wonderful thing about art -- it's always, always in translation, to be interpreted, to mean different, imperfect things to different, imperfect people.

That "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" manages to be a tight, unique, personal, thought-provoking stream of consciousness, as well as a big fuck you to the boxed musings of the likes of Robert McKee and Joseph Campbell, leaves it the rare smashup of heart-on-sleeve indie insecurity and the exciting vulnerability of a true artist's prose. I love this movie. I love the performances. I love where it's coming from, how it's executed, the genre-bending juggernaut it deploys without constantly patting itself on the back and giving you a direct map to follow. I love the damn RUSH of the thing, man. It's the twin peaks of passion that blankets and drags you away. Everyone's got to love sometime. And sometimes, it's even made in the dark.